The Beginning of the AI-Enabled Preventative PAP Therapy Era: A First-in-Human Proof of Concept Interventional Study.

Positive Airway Pressure (PAP) therapy is the most common and efficacious treatment for Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). However, it suffers from poor patient adherence due to discomfort and may not fully alleviate all adverse consequences of OSA. Identifying abnormal respiratory events before they have occurred may allow for improved management of PAP levels, leading to improved adherence and better patient outcomes.

High Frequency-Low Amplitude Oscillometry: Continuous Unobtrusive Monitoring of Respiratory Function on PAP Machines.

Oscillometry or Forced Oscillation Technique, traditionally used in intermittent clinical measurements, has recently gained substantial attention from its application as a continuous monitoring tool for large and small airways. However, low frequency (<8 Hz) continuous oscillometry faces high breathing noise, and hence requires high oscillation amplitudes to maintain an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio. Therefore, PAP machines that utilize low frequency oscillometry do so intermittently to distinguish airway patency several seconds after a breathing pause has occurred.

Sparse Projection Pursuit Analysis: An Alternative for Exploring Multivariate Chemical Data.

Sparse projection pursuit analysis (SPPA), a new approach for the unsupervised exploration of high-dimensional chemical data, is proposed as an alternative to traditional exploratory methods such as principal components analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). Where traditional methods use variance and distance metrics for data compression and visualization, the proposed method incorporates the fourth statistical moment (kurtosis) to access interesting subspaces that can clarify relationships within complex data sets. The quasi-power algorithm used for projection pursuit is coupled with a genetic algorithm for variable selection to efficiently generate sparse projection vectors that improve the chemical interpretability of the results while at the same time mitigating the problem of overmodeling.

Chemical Barcoding: A Nuclear-Magnetic-Resonance-Based Approach To Ensure the Quality and Safety of Natural Ingredients.

One of the greatest challenges facing the functional food and natural health product (NHP) industries is sourcing high-quality, functional, natural ingredients for their finished products. Unfortunately, the lack of ingredient standards, modernized analytical methodologies, and industry oversight creates the potential for low quality and, in some cases, deliberate adulteration of ingredients. By exploring a diverse library of NHPs provided by the independent certification organization ISURA, we demonstrated that nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy provides an innovative solution to authenticate botanicals and warrant the quality and safety of processed foods and manufactured functional ingredients.

A survey of medico-legal practice patterns among pain specialists.

Objective: Pain clinicians are increasingly asked to provide expert commentary in a variety of medico-legal or forensic contexts. The purpose of this study was to discover the frequency and type of medico-legal activity undertaken by pain specialists, their familiarity with current guidelines, and their opinions with respect to a need for formal ethical or practice guidelines.

Design: Members of the New England Pain Association were surveyed with a 20-item questionnaire addressing specific areas of practice including the completion of disability forms, letters/attorney reports, depositions, testimony in court, record reviews, and return-to-work forms.

Effect of a passive jaw motion device on pain and range of motion in TMD patients not responding to flat plane intraoral appliances.

This study was designed to compare the effectiveness of a passive jaw motion device, the Therabite, and wooden tongue depressors (WTD), in patients with temporomandibular joint and muscle disorders, who did not improve after manual manipulation of the mandible and flat bite plane therapy. Forty-three patients were enrolled in the study and were classified as joint or muscle groups according to the Research Diagnostic Criteria for TMD. Twenty-four were assigned to the joint group, and 19 patients were assigned to the muscle group.